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BUDDHIST INDIA
valuable to the historian, of all kinds of animistic hocus-pocus - evidently forming part of the beliefs of the people in the valley of the Ganges in the sixth century B. C., for how otherwise could such “low arts” have been the source of gain to the brahmins and others who practised them? We are told of palmistry, divination of all sorts, auguries drawn from the celestial phenomena, prognostications by interpretation of dreams, auguries drawn from marks on cloth gnawed by mice, sacrifices to Agni,—it is characteristic to find these in such company, -oblations of various sorts to gods, determining lucky sites, repeating charms, laying ghosts, snake charming, using similar arts
FIG. 36.-SIRIMĀ DEVATĀ. [From the Bharahat Tope. Pl. xxiii.]
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
